CEDO 550 - Week Four

Week 4 of CEDO 550 kicked-off this past Monday with my leading a 15 minute synchronous Web discussion using my synchronous discussion plan.  I felt good about the execution but I wish that I had had better control and fluency with Elluminate.   I had several takeaways from this session and I would suggest the following to anyone planning a synchronous session:

1) Practice delivery in advance. 

2) Master use of the intended tools to be utilized

3) And just like  with Radio broadcasts, smile while talking and avoid using those 'ers',' ums' and 'ahs'.  

In reflecting on my teaching experiences to date, I would say that the proportion of teacher centered lessons dominate my student-centered lessons.   That being said, I've always pushed for student-centered activities where they practice with software or discuss issues in small groups.  In the latter, I have acted as the facilitator seeding questions and transitioned from the central authority to being a co-learner.  This past week I took an existing teacher-centered course and created a student-centered course which can be taught online.  In the student-centered course the participants are active in their learning and meet with others to deepen meaning and understanding.

I was able to identify more than one authentic assessment to measure mastery of a single concept lesson when I established the standards for my lesson.   One needs to ask, "What should students know and be able to do?"  I came-up with 3 standards for my Advanced Tech sailing course and found that I could have 3 separate assessments for each.
 

 The rubric I created for my lesson clearly defined expectations and scoring for the lesson so that my students could best understand their level of proficiency in 3 main concept areas of heavy-weather sailing.  Sailing in heavy or high winds is an extreme activity and sailors need to act immediately and with actions that are appropriate.  Any single slip-up or misunderstanding will have dire consequences for the safety of the boats and crew.  Students share the task work, reflect and state in their own words what they need to do before leaving land and while on the water.

While working on this module I had success/difficulty while doing something new involving the assessment of student participation in the collaborative tasks.   As a teacher, how do I know if one student has done all of the group work or others have contributed as best they can?  In the rubric I state that students will collaborate and take turns using TypeWithMe to describe their responses.  TypeWithMe is a document sharing tool where multiple people can type together at once.  The application software is free but it color highlights individual user contribution and identifies users in a color key.  Using this feature of TypeWithMe, I will ask students to complete collaborative responses, e-mail the link to me and after I review responses, I can gauge level of student participation.